


Fragile Roots

by CharlieMcarthy



Series: Resonance Timeline (TF Fics) [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gift Work, M/M, Snow Storm, as do i, basically my gf loves Star/Bee so i decided to write this for her, bee loves playing in snow but hates snow, mentionted star/skyfire, ok i need to group my TF stuff bc i keep forgetting orz, resonance timeline, starscream worries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22012288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieMcarthy/pseuds/CharlieMcarthy
Summary: [93% Stardust timeline] “Who tells the crocus that it’s spring?” Bumblebee and Starscream enjoy most seasons, but winter is one they might have to learn to get used to.
Relationships: Bumblebee/Starscream (Transformers), Optimus Prime/Cade Yeager, Skyfire/Starscream
Series: Resonance Timeline (TF Fics) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584457
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Fragile Roots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Honeybee1031](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honeybee1031/gifts).



> This ended up being a big longer than I intended, and instead of forcing it in 93% Stardust (which is supposed to be barn husbands MOSTLY) I decided just to toss it up as a one shot. Actually, this is also a gift for my girlfriend! Our anniversary as Halloween but weh. Writing is hard and why I don't gift it often. 
> 
> If you haven’t read 93% Stardust’s chapter 6, ‘Lost Boys’ then know this: Optimus and Cade have a base around Yeager’s property, rebuilt on Joyce’s dime. Bee and Skyfire save Starscream after Megatron vanishes, and Star’s trine are offlined. Optimus makes Bumblebee Starscream’s keeper, and the two begin to bond.

_Oh little flower, how naïve!  
To tempt the Gods of storm,  
With little wisdom you proceed;  
What if you are wrong?_

_T'is best to wait that final freeze.  
Oh eager flower of youth,  
You may catch a cold and sneeze  
And break a fragile root._

_-David McLanksy_

* * *

**_Fragile Roots_ **

Bumblebee rouses from recharge to quite a few things. One, he is somewhat hungry. Two, he is a bit too cold to be comfortable, and three, he is very much alone.

The first two problems are simple matters, and simple matters are solved by simple solutions.  
All well and good, because as Prime’s scout he _is_ a problem solver.

...but why is he _alone?_

Bumblebee grumbles his engine in dreary askance and confusion, stalling his sounds. He pauses hopefully for his noises to be answered. Only the mean wind answers him, buffeting his garage with roars of cold and ice, and batting at the eves of his building.

Rolling toward his garage door, he sends out the signal for it to rise, and when it does darkness threatens to snake under the lifting metal. He flashes on his headlights, internally scowling in defiance at the winter wind that whips the annoying ice flakes into his grill. It is late, near midnight, in fact. The world sleeps.

Well…most of it.

Now he is hungry, colder than ever and confused about his loneliness to boot. This all adds up to a very grumpy scout, who will not listen if he’s told how adorable he looks. He will deny it. So there he is, a sad sports car inching his way over the icy sheets as he searches for the jet he has grown quite used to sleeping under. He slides out through the snow fall, realizing how new the weather is, how brutal and quick it came upon them. Cold temperatures are all fine and dandy, but there has been no warning. Cade hadn’t even gotten to fitting them all for snow tires yet!

Bee thinks to himself, sullenly, that the snow probably won’t stick, which is good. But it will make the ground slippery when it melts, which is bad. Then, if their luck runs out as it is apt to do, the chilly water will freeze to ice, which is _worse_.

Darkness envelops him. Nightfall darkness, which makes the sky an unfeeling slate, and the horizon slightly glow from the small Texan city, so far away from the Autobot-Yeager compound. There are humans that way, but no transformers. They were not welcome near the city anymore, unless they were in their alt mode. So maybe some _are_ disguised there, hidden in plain sight with no others of their kind, no friends to be found, not even in humans. Times have changed. Bumblebee has tried not to change with it, but even he can’t ignore the bitter sting of resentfulness at Earth’s once dominant species. He focuses back on the Now, eyeing his home and self-soothes himself with some soft music. Not _all_ humans, Bumblebee reminds himself as The Smiths sing to him. Comforted by the memory of his first girl, he shakes the bitterness from his processors like he shakes the snow fall from his hood.

The big, only a few months old farmhouse sits before him as he ambles up to it. It looks like a tiny sparkling of Metrocity, were such a thing possible. Bumblebee amuses himself with imagining how all the angles of Cade’s house might change if it, too, were a Transformer, but he soon grows tired of this game and rolls past the house.

He is still lonely.

A pitch black farmhouse signals an inventor in the barn, even in this weather.

Bumblebee eyes the dimly lit barn thoughtfully, but does not need to peek inside to know what he will see.

He trundles by his commander’s currently closed off territory, letting both autobot and inventor lie. Optimus is a warm, gentle being, and he seems all too happy to keep their little human-medic warm even on the coldest of nights. This makes Bee happy, if only because he wants Cade and the bot who adopted him to feel happy as well.

Primus knows they both deserved it.

Megatron has vanished off the face of the Earth, (perhaps universe, if they were lucky) and his decepticons have been strung to the winds like baby spiders that Bee sometimes watches on the fence, tossing their webs to the air. Not all, of course, plenty were still following the cause.

But one…one was not.

One in particular was not following any cause, save his own, but this so like Starscream that none of the autobots were really very surprised.

What _was_ surprising, to both Bumblebee and even the seeker, was that the once SIC seemed to be enjoying his asylum here, even in a compound of autobots. Correction; he enjoyed his company with Bumblebee, and the rest could bite his aft. (Starscream’s words; often hissed and snarled when someone made a snide comment or got to close for his liking.) Perhaps the one exception was gentle Skyfire, who Starscream still regarded with some attempt at warmth when the two came across one another. Though that was rare. Seekers were a stubborn lot, and avoided what few things they couldn’t outrace or out-stubborn.

Yet none of this hostility was extended to Bumblebee much anymore. Very little, and what ire was given to him was usually curtained over some inner meaning, such as: _‘Have you eaten yet, little scout? Come with me. Are you so ill mannered you would let me eat alone?’_ or perhaps _‘How many times must I remind you to check your tires before races?! I will not offer you pity if they pop again!’_ and perhaps Bumblebee’s favorite so far: _‘Move over, my hangar is pitch black and freezing! Yeager couldn’t spring for heating for us all, could he?’_

That last one lead too many nights together, the camaro resting under the belly of the jet’s long frame as the weeks passed and autumn hardened to winter.

As a seeker, Starscream should be more apt to colder temperatures. He enjoyed higher altitudes than should be physically possible for his altmodes’ scanned origins. Still, Bee mused to himself as he ambled through the property, going up into the wind and preparing oneself for such temperatures was _not_ the same as trying to rest in temperate one. Especially when one is so rudely caught off guard by the bitter wind.

He also knows for a fact that when he had fallen into recharge, his garage door was open. He did so because Starscream was truly a seeker, and he loathed enclosed spaces more than any autobot. It was closed when he awoke just now. Starscream had woken, left for some reason, but had the care and concern to make sure Bumblebee wouldn’t be left alone in a dark garage with nothing to shelter him from the arriving storm.

Bee searches, his growing curiosity and desire to find the seeker pushing him onward until he’s off the Yeager property and far up the hill that leads off to the mountains. Well, they are little mountains, truly, but they still exist and even in the night Bee can make out their tops, piercing the snow-sky above. He picks up speed, playing soft music to himself. When he grows tired of The Smiths, he moves to songs Sam used to listen to.

Starscream is not here, but he _was_ , Bumblebee knows. He knows in a way that is instinctive to his programming, the way a wolf hunts, the way a deer evades. He is a scout, and he is Prime’s best scout.

Even in blinding-snow and stinging-ice, Bumblebee can still put his programming to work and be proud of his talents. And in all truth, were this any other time, he might enjoy the challenge of tracking something that left no tracks, in the middle of a blizzard.

But not right now. Not yet, anyway. He wanders further, deeper and higher. The compound is melts away behind him, but he is acutely aware of where he is, as he always is.

Soon he finds Starscream, all elegant wings and attractive curves even in his alt mode. Bee croons happily, tone tinted with relief as he plays questioning music at the seeker. Bee cannot speak very well, and that is fine. Starscream is a surprisingly studious listener, and has picked up the scout’s rebuilt language with more speed than even Optimus or Hot Rod had.

The clever seeker allows him close, just out of reach but near enough to ping him a message.

It is an apology--brief but earnestly soothing--for poor Bumblebee waking alone and being sore about it. Starscream hadn’t meant to scare the scout, nor did he expect Bee to wake up and come looking for him. Especially in this weather! And then Star chirps right after his apologetic purring, giving a welcoming, happy trill—and the seeker skates upward into the night-gloom. Bee studies the belly of the jet but soon Starscream is hidden. His engine mumbles and thrum teasingly above, but he is nowhere to be seen. Though he is staying close...

Starscream is hiding from him! The realization comes sharply like a swing of an axe but playfulness follows like a warm wave. Hide-and-seek! A scout’s _favorite_ game.

Bumblebee darts forward and around the landscape, letting the freezing ice help him coast up the path to follow the wandering, running seeker. A chase during this weather would be a Challenge, but that was the best part about it all, wasn’t it? Bumblebee kills his engine and stalls, letting the seeker gain ground and advantage.

Bumblebee searches, attention turning from sky to ground when he notices the engine noises have faded. He eyes some dark trees to his left and searches with more senses than his optics. A thoughtful hum leaves him as he rolls to a stop.

The wind moans. Snow flies. But Starscream is not up there with the flying snow. Which means he has _landed_.

Bumblebee kicks forward, spitting up slick flurries and sliding along the frosted, dying grass. ‘There!’ he crows, diving brazenly among a pair of healthy evergreens that even Optimus would be dwarfed by.

The jet jerks upward from the underbrush where it was hiding, only doing so by sheer force of will and the inky darkness. The snow cover was helping too, but it hadn’t helped for long.

Bumblebee chases the seeker from his hiding spot, before turning and driving off playfully.

Above, Starscream’s laughter is a lilting, effervescent trill. It is so unlike what Bee is used to from the seeker for ages that sometimes he forgets it is a noise Starscream is so willing to make, let alone one he makes around him. Their jaunts are always spontaneous and their games are almost usually ambushes or races--why should now be any different?

From high above the seeker drops, a sharp nose dive that could stun a lesser opponent or cause them to flee. But Bumblebee is neither of these things, and certainly by now he’s well equipped to the seeker’s sometimes intense idea of Play.

The camaro bolts sideways, skiing artfully up on his two left tires before he drops back down and spins into a wider doughnut. He plays energetic music; a song a bull-fighter would romp to, and encourages Starscream--the bull--to come at him again.

Starscream banks upward into a lazily tail spin, riding the wind with ease borne of practice and skill. The snowflakes melt on him instantly, his outer armor creating a thin layer of heat to provide him excellent protection against sleet and cold. This is something all seekers can do, and so it is perhaps why he did not stop to consider that Bumblebee is no seeker—and cannot divert the cold snow as well as he.

Starscream thunders back in again, riding a torrent of wind upwards and doing a loop-de-loop for his own enjoyment.

Below, Bumblebee laughs brightly, most of it whipped away by wind and distance.

The dive bombs become chasing once more, sometimes the scout chasing the seeker and sometimes the seeker chasing the scout. Play games for Transformers are more often than not, Hunting games and Hunting games are meant to teach as much as they are to drain energies.

Starscream rides the erratic winds and rolls sideways. He follows a dizzying pattern, with little regard to common sense or safety. His thrusters quiet and he lets gravity command him for a moment, the ground coming ever closer. This does not concern him, because flight is more natural to him than walking on his own struts.

What does concern him is the fact his racing partner, his little Bumblebee, is no longer racing his shadow. He is not playfully doing doughnuts, or bouncing on his tires and using his pre-recorded voices to tease the seeker and entice him into a new game that the clever little scout has just thought of.

Starscream arches his fins and rolls his engines, irritated. He does not like not knowing where the little scout has wandered off too, not without him at least. This does not feel like part of their game, either. It feels…odd. Wrong.

Perhaps this is Bumblebee’s snide payback for his earlier actions, when he left Bee’s garage?

But something old and instinctual, the sort of voice that you listen to you because it will keep you Online during War time, mutters that this is not likely. No. Not because Bumblebee is not vindictive--because he is, quite so when the mood struck him.

But rather, because Starscream had already apologized for leaving to chase the storm and so Bumblebee had already forgiven him.

Winter wind pushes hard against the alone seeker and he warbles in confusion, forgetting to use English or even Cybertronian. When distracted, or very tired, Starscream slipped deeper into his seeker programming, and seekers had a language all their own.

He calls out a second time, high pitched. He is getting ever more agitated, making a proper racket that would bring anything to him within twenty miles.

Starscream turns, realizing he cannot see the slumbering shadows of the base anymore.

Just falling ice, soft and silvery against a gray-black backdrop of nothingness that only Earth’s semi polluted atmosphere could properly pull off. Such weather had never brought Starscream much unease until this moment, until suddenly it does.

He shrieks in concern for Bumblebee and anger at himself.

Seekers can count very well, and as such they can keep track of one another equally well. Bumblebee is not a seeker--and Starscream does not pretend him to be, no matter how nice the mental image is--but seekers are most at ease in a social environment. Even one bitter and brutal as Starscream, _Prince-With-No-Crown,_ _Screams-Like-Dying-Starlight,_ he too can understand lost.

It used to be his favorite thing to be; _Lost._

Lost meant Lord Megatron was not with him. Lost meant freedom and peace, Lost meant looking for dark energon--

At least, it used to. Until he got clean.

It wasn’t easy. Nothing ever is, when you’re Lost and Alone, not even your trinemates to answer your cries and whimpers. And on some of his most lonesome, longest nights he still hears the siren song of that cataclysmic venom. And oh, how it makes his spark ache and throb for the missing drug like a missing wing, but he shakes it off and tells himself silly.

Often times he goes and pesters Bumblebee, for a race or to watch him play his gaming-videos, those delightfully colorful noisy things on the flatscreen Cade got Bee for some made up human holiday a while ago.

Starscream breaks himself from his memories, armor flaring as he scolds himself again and focuses.

Lost. Bumblebee is _Lost,_ and if he stays Lost, Starscream is sure to follow the scout, right over an edge that the seeker fears he cannot crawl back out of a second time.

Bumblebee…Bumblebee who found him and stayed with him and kept him grounded when he needed to be, but also lifted him up when the time was right, too.

The seeker skates through the sky, locking onto the coordinates of his current Nest--the Autobot/Yeager compound--and then backtracking their steps. Bumblebee’s tires tracks are not easy to follow.

Soon they are gone entirely.

Cold panic creeps into him and he backspins, a dizzying maneuver that is preferably not done under such wintry conditions. He loses balance and almost falls from the sky but rolls himself right side up and flips Eastward instead.

He flies. Then he turns. Then he flies again.

“Bumblebee?” He calls, not liking how fearful his pitch is, or how it is whipped away behind him from the wind and his own momentum.

He slows, because he realizes it would be very easy to fly right over the little camaro, if he is too careless in his searching.

“Bumblebee!?”

His scanners find no trace of the scout, but also no trace of anything dangerous. This is good; it means it is unlikely someone had taken his friendly, warm little scout. Bumblebee is many things, he is good at hide-and-hunt, he is incredibly fast and quick on his wheels, but he is _not_ quiet when he is angry. And the odd encroacher who had come to steal him away would absolutely make Bumblebee angry and above all, noisy.

And then, as the storm around Starscream and the one inside him thickens horribly, does he hear it.

A song.

Well, a human song. Which, to a lyrical breed like a seeker makes it a very poor excuse for music. Comparing human music to a seeker’s idea of music is the equivalent to stating a seagull and a nightingale are siblings and by that logic, they should sound just the same. (They do not, of course, and any seeker will fight you over this.)

But now, in this moment between freezing-wind and biting-snow, that horribly grating sound might as well be a chorus of Vosian-performers in the stained glass towers they would sing in. Because it’s bleating notes and keening calls are drawing him closer to his target. Because they can only be coming from one source in particular.

Starscream dives downward like a mad thing, locking onto the distress signal and unfolding from his alt mode. He lands as soft and elegant as a jungle cat, sinking into the snow a mere two feet from a tipped and half buried camaro, its one visible headlight nearly frosted over. The one exposed tire rolls miserably and then goes still.

“Bumblebee!” Starscream cries, dipping down and beginning to dig out around the frozen scout. “What in Vos’ name did you do to yourself!?”

Bumblebee whines in sarcastic, annoyed response, his radio going silent. He has no recorded response, which is worrying, but he has a _memory._

He shows that memory to Starscream, who halts his actions and hisses in pain and fright as the video replays behind his optics. It only ends with the small human sparkling Bumblebee used to keep as a pet--whatever happened to him? Starscream wonders--and though Starscream can infer that the sparkling-pet saved Bumblebee back then from the human’s nitrogen attacks, he is still stuck on the assaulters at the start of the memory clip.

“Oh, those wretched, spineless _vermin_ ,” The seeker snarls in rage of Bee’s behalf, “They did the same to Megatron too, you know? And, well, say what you want about that brute, but being frozen alive like that...its torture for you grounders, isn’t it? You never quite get over it, not physically...” Starscream trailed off sheepishly, and went back to digging.

Clearly they didn’t get over it. And it apparently left deeper-than-usual lasting scars, otherwise Bumblebee would not have locked up from the frost, and not slipped on the ice, and not tumbled down the small mountainside and not buried himself in a snow bank. Once or twice the frozen scout tried unfolding from alt mode, only for ice to crunch and slip into his delicate inner workings, and cause him to clench back up with a chorus of miserable warbles and moans.

“Are your scanners iced through?” Starscream asks, more honey in his voice than one would think possible. “Yes? Poor thing...I’m here now.”

Starscream can be terrifying. He can cruel and spark-less and vicious like venom in a snake’s fangs.

But he can be gentle, too. Few just ever deserve to see such a side of him.

But Bumblebee? Sweet, warm, playful Bumblebee? Who had shown him nothing but kindness and whistled-trilled at him and never seemed to listen to others when they told him to avoid Starscream like the plague?

Bumblebee _has_ earned this, and more, from the Winglord, and he was about to see the results of his budding bond with the powerful, lonely flier.

“I’m sorry, Bumblebee.” Starscream wrenches the camaro by his front tire and axel and heaves, only staying upright because his stiletto pede has stuck through ice and helpfully anchored him upright for the moment.

Bumblebee tumbles free into the fresh snow, and shakily unfolds into his root mode. It takes a few tries, and Starscream winces when he sees how frosted and quivering Bee’s door-wings are. They are useless features but utterly adorable on the little scout, although right now they are braced at a painful angle. The scout rises foggy aqua optics at him and bleeps weakly.

Despite the snow and situation, Starscream feels his spark melt. Bee was looking to him for protection and help, and that trust was driving away the Thirst for that poisonous dark energon better than anything he had tried before. He could do this! He was not Useless, and he was not Alone and Lost. He was with Bumblebee, who _needed_ him.

“Let’s get you back to your garage, my brave little Butterfly. I think we’ve done enough damage for one night, wouldn’t you agree?”

Bee answers with several rattles of his armor plating, which is the way a frosted Transformer shivers, and nods his helm. The two being the long shuffle home, leaning on each other as the world loses some of itself in a blizzard.

* * *

They do not return to Bee’s garage, but instead sneak cleverly into Skyfire’s.

Starscream is supporting most of, if not all, the half thawed scout and the seeker watches the shuttle rouse from his recharge and rise, a great mountain come to life for them.

“What have you two gotten into now?” His calm, deep voice asks. He is equally groggy as he is amused. It fades to concern as he takes in Starscream’s miserable silence--for this IS his fault--and Bumblebee’s trembling, quaking little frame and the way he stumbles every time Starscream tries to guide him.

“We... **I** went out into the storm.” Starscream says, because Bumblebee has promised him that honesty gets you rewards under Optimus Prime’s leadership, not punishments. “And Bumblebee came to find me. Well...we started playing and...time got away from us.”

“Is it still storming?” The shuttle queries in interest, moving with an acute grace that shuttles have when they are near smaller transformers.

“Yes.” Star answers, pausing to nuzzle Bee’s helm and free a servo to stroke the scout’s flattened little antenna. Bee warbles tiredly back, but his sluggish responses cause more worry than anything else in the seeker.

“You have a big berth, Skyfire.” Starscream knows he is asking a lot, at least: someone in his position with the history he has with the shuttle is asking a lot. But Skyfire might still say yes--he liked Bumblebee after all.

“I do.” Skyfire smiles, moving away from his hangar door and closing it. “I can’t exactly take these off at night, just like you can’t yours.” He gestures to his incredible wingspan and Starscream nods slowly.

“...could we…?” For it is much easier to be a coward and not ask directly, but rather indirectly. Much easier.

Skyfire walks over to them, checking the miserable Bumblebee over with a critical scientist’s gaze, but when he finds nothing that a medic can solve, he relaxes and nods.

“Of course. Come here, you two.”

Bee blips in thanks and affection, perking up and trying to help Starscream shuffle his near-frozen frame over to the big, shuttle sized berth.

“Thank you.” Starscream breathes, flattening his wings as a rare bout of submission and shyness over comes his circuitry. Silly! He scolds himself, and bustles about getting the little scout settled, finding him the best spot and deciding to put him between himself and Skyfire’s large frame.

What he and Skyfire had...it was long gone. Starscream blamed Skyfire for a long time, because blaming others is always easier than looking in the mirror.

Now, centuries older and a bit wiser with a clearer mind, Starscream blames them both. He must, for no one should have been treated the way Skyfire had been treated by Starscream. But he can’t let go of the burning sting of betrayal, the way Skyfire left him in Megatron’s clutches so long ago. Not that Starscream gave him much of a choice, but…

Starscream jolts from his misery when Bee’s soft noises snare his attention and he looks down at the curled up mech. He could melt at the adoration in Bee’s optics, cloudy and befuddled as they are.

“You’ll be warm soon enough, Bumblebee.” The seeker reminds as if Bee had asked. Bumblebee murmurs a noise of nothingness back, his broken throat pipes grating.

Remembering how he wanted Bee between the two as they recharged, Starscream slipped up and over the scout, settling behind him. He flicked his wings out of the way but spread one up, crooking it at such an angle that Bee is sheltered from above a bit, too. Starscream sinks behind the scout’s shorter but stockier frame, watching with skittish optics as Skyfire joins them carefully. The heat and close weight of the large shuttle does help, making Bee sag in muted relief and causing Starscream’s talons to gently pet the scout’s plating to soothe him further.

“I miss the oil tubs on Iacon.” Skyfire rumbles down to Bumblebee, who chirps his noise for agreement then clicks and warbles something else.

“Yes, we could, but I’m not sure Cade would understand our request. Nor would Earth have the oil needed to sustain the baths. We were just fine using the nearby lake until the season changed…” Skyfire trails off pleasantly.

“Feh. An annoying planet, with this nonsense of ‘seasons.’” Starscream helps himself into the conversation, though only to gripe and complain.

“But very thrilling to study. This solar system’s sun dictates quite a lot on Earth, whether we all like it or not.” Skyfire, ever the scientist, muses to himself as he settles on his broad back.

“Yes—And it dictates well, doesn’t it? It’s almost like having Unicorn back. How wonderful.” Starscream complains nastily, earning a tired snort from the scout he’s wrapped himself possessively around.

The mention of the World-Eater seems to stifle the conversation—that, or the howling wind outside and growing heat between the three of them is doing most of the work. Starscream hears Skyfire’s engines slow, but he stays most of his focus on the scout. He rests his jaw on the scout’s helm and draws lazy shapes and patterns with a dexterous claw along Bee’s arm and front. He too is sleepy, but sleep does not come. Not yet. His mind has latched onto taking care of Bumblebee and won’t rest until it’s satisfied. Seekers are loyal things, both vehemently possessive and protective, when they choose something they want to keep. And oh, Starscream wants to keep Bumblebee quite close. His mind ambles like a lazy night flyer, from subject to subject.

And if he cuts it off, it might wander back toward Craving Dark Energon, again. Which is a chilling thought, and cuts ice through his spark far worse than any snow could hope to.

No, best to keep watch for a bit longer.

Slowly, Bumblebee drops into recharge. He is slack and content in Starscream’s possessive hold, the water having dripped off him and dried with both Starscream and Skyfire’s heaters working over time.

Starscream knows the shuttle is awake, because it isn’t long before he hears those large heaters click to low. And then all at once off as the heat begins growing toward tight instead of comfortable.

Groggy and relaxed, the seeker clicks grateful thanks for the shuttle’s gestures. Heat was nice, but overheating them would also do no good, not to them or the scout they whose temperature they were not trying to keep stable. Thankfully Bee was so small for a Transformer—it meant he defrosted faster!

Skyfire thrums back, a lazy pulse of noise from his engines as he rests there.

Starscream has a million comments and thoughts on his processor, but all of them get stuck on his glossa. He is here to help Bumblebee, not to pick at scarred wounds between he and Skyfire. It would do no good for anyone in the situation, least of all Starscream at this point.

Not for the first time, the seeker misses his trinemates like one misses a limb. Oh, how his spark aches in loneliness and fear, old instincts fighting over his logic-processors. The royal family had nine seekers borne in them, Starscream was the youngest. He loved his progenitors, and his nestmates, but his trine…his trine was given to him from the lineage of the royal guards. Thundercracker and Skywarp were a bit older than him, with Skywarp being only a few cycles ahead of the prince. As such their trine programming had cultivated itself early and deep. Starscream had known from a young age he would never be the WingLord, but he had his trine and that was enough.

And then…Vos burned. And his sire and carrier had burned. His nestmates. So many of his people.

But he, and his trine, had remained. Stubborn. Set against the Autobots and sided to the Decepticons and their plans for change and reform.

That had been…so long ago. The concept was downright _dizzying_ to the emotionally spent seeker.

Now? He was here. Lying among Autobots, lying here holding an Autobot. Prime’s youngest, his little scout, who was regarded more like a son than anything, especially when Optimus spoke to Bee privately.

Not for the first time, Starscream tries to imagine Bumblebee as a sparkling. He knows that Bee is the last soul from the AllSpark, he knows that Bumblebee was taken in by Optimus Prime instead of given away properly to a carrier who could raise him.

And yet, he knows Bumblebee would have had it no other way.

Starscream did not particularly feel strong love toward Optimus Prime, but he respected the love Bumblebee had for the commander. That must have been something, right?

Starscream shifts softly onto his side, and guides Bee’s helm to rest under his jaw against his neck cables. He lays there, soft and silent and subdued. Far from the self-righteous, uppity SIC of Megatron’s Decepticons. Far from the constant fighting, and running, and searching for Dark Energon. So far he feels Lost in all the best ways.

Starscream wraps one long limb around the little scout, who is so deep in recharge he is silent. Across from Bee’s small black frame, Skyfire has dropped off too. Starscream remembers how the jet sounds when he sleeps, and the noises have not changed with time.

Privately, Starscream wishes for time to freeze like the weather outside. For ice and snow and sleet to stitch across Time and halt it, forever and for always. So that he may stay here, separate from the autobots somewhat, but free from the decepticons, with Bumblebee’s warm and friendly company. With Skyfire within reach, willing to help them when Starscream asks. For the protection Optimus Prime’s presence grants over the compound, and for Megatron to stay in whatever dark hole he’s crawled into.

To spend the rest of his days like this? Exploring and playing and making up funny little games to entertain himself and the scout?

He is being silly. But he can dream.

Pleasantly warm and listening to the sounds of his two sleeping berthmates, Starscream allows his processors to relax. His optics offline, and immediately begin replaying glorious memories of flight and races with Bumblebee. While winter smothers the base—his new nest—and cold skirts just outside, and comfortable warmth grows between him and Bee and Skyfire. His processors wander from ‘Memories’ to new thoughts. They turn to dreams, syrupy warm with sunshine and Bee’s cute little laughter and the gentle weight of Skyfire holding them both close.

Yes. He can certainly dream. And no one—not Dark Energon or Megatron or Unicorn himself, could take away those from him.

* * *

_"No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn."_ _–Hal Borland_

END


End file.
